RUSH: Ronna McDaniel… Here are the economic numbers, by the way: 273,000 new jobs. That’s a hundred thousand more than expected. This is the February report just last month, just last month. We had 85,000 more jobs created in December and January than originally thought. It’s an upward revision, for those of you in Rio Linda. The unemployment rate is back down to 3.5%. So, 273,000 new jobs. That’s 100,000 more than the so-called experts projected.
Now, here’s some facts about these numbers. Just two months into the year, the U.S. economy has already added more jobs than had been projected for the entire year, and that’s not a senseless projection. I mean, the U.S. economy is humming along at pretty much statistical full employment. When you’re at 3.5% unemployment, statistically that equals full employment. In other words, to have the unemployment rate less than that, you have to add jobs that probably are not gonna be added.
So 3.5%? It doesn’t get any better than that, is the point, and already — two months into this year — the U.S. economy’s already added more jobs than had been projected to be created for this entire year. I mentioned last time we were together (that would have been Tuesday) that everybody’s worried about the effect of the coronavirus on the economy. I think the economy has got a bunch of strength baked in, that the stock market…
We can handle declines that we’re seeing. We could handle if there are some job losses. The economy is doing so well that even if there is a significant slowdown, at the end of that we’re gonna be so far ahead of where we were when Trump took office that it’s not even gonna be close. The Congressional Budget Office had projected an annual gain of 441,000 jobs this year, and we’ve already — just in the first two months of 2020 — created or added 546,000 jobs. In the first two months!
Do you realize, that doesn’t happen! That’s when seasonal workers for holidays are let go. That’s when unemployment usually rises — and wages are up a solid 3% as well. Now I want to go back to the… Not back to it. I want to go to the Trump town hall appearance last night on the Fox News Channel, because there was one particular thing. He said a lot of things last night. He was at ease, he was relaxed, he was comfortable, and they tried… I don’t blame anybody for this.
They tried to trip Trump up a couple of times on questions, and he just didn’t fall for it. This is not a criticism of anybody. Do not misunderstand. It’s just what journalists do, and Trump was on his game, and he saw what the attempt was and didn’t get drawn into it. But this bite here is one I specifically asked Cookie to roll off for me because they were asking him, what about his old life does he miss.
They asked him, “Go back to the day before you came down the escalator, June of 2015. The day before, what was your life like? Do you miss any of that?”
This is what he said…
THE PRESIDENT: I loved my old life. The day before I announced I was running for president, that was the best period ever of my life. My company was strongest it ever was. It was the strongest period of my life. It was sort of the best period of my entire life.
MACCALLUM: Is there anything that you can’t do now that you —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, yeah. I mean, I can’t walk down the street now. So it’s a lot different. So I do miss that. I miss that sort of free life. This is not a free life. But I love what we’re doing because we’re accomplishing more than anybody’s ever… I’m viewing it as, we’re saving this country.
CROWD: (applause)
THE PRESIDENT: This country was going wrong.
RUSH: Bingo. See? Right there. Bingo! “We are saving this country.” Now, normally you don’t hear… Even if politicians think that’s what they’re doing, they don’t put it in those terms. They will describe their job, their objectives, their performance, in more esoteric or generic ways. But I think it’s important that Trump said this because his base has never doubted.
When Trump was running and mentioned all the things — Make America Great Again, fixing illegal immigration, the wall, rebuilding the military, whatever — the one thing his base has never, ever doubted is that he was serious, and his base has never been… I can’t say never. There might have been two or three moments in the past three years where maybe some in his base got a little worried that he might go wobbly on certain things only because of things he said at one point.
For example, when he had a board meeting, editorial board meeting with the New York Times and said some things about climate change. People said, “Well, no, he’s gonna go… Oh, no.” But then it came time for the pedal to hit the metal, the rubber to hit the road. We pulled out of the Paris accords. He didn’t change a thing. He just was playing with people. The point is that Trump has yet to give his base any reason to doubt his sincerity.
Do you realize how hard that is to do in politics? As cynical as people are, particularly Republican voters about Republican elected officials, and for Trump to maintain that high confidence level? So when in this answer, he says, “I love what we’re doing, because I’m viewing it as we’re saving this country,” that’s all anybody needed to hear last night. If that’s all they heard, that was enough.
That right there tells them that everything Donald Trump ran for office on is something he’s still trying to accomplish and things that are related to it. They have no doubt. And that’s why, you know, they tried all of these things, the media, with Russia and a phone call to Ukraine and Stormy Daniels and Avenatti and Michael Cohen — all of these futile little things that the media has tried and the Democrats have tried to separate Trump voters from Trump.
They haven’t even gotten close, and when Trump says, “I really view it as we’re saving this country,” that’s all any of his basis needed to hear last night. And they remain all-in, and they remain confident that he’s on the same wavelength and thinking about the same things he was four years ago when he was running for office. I think that that bite right there is the essence of the Trump presidency.
You know, what did he say? The day before he announced was the best period ever in his life. The day before he announced. Let me translate that for you. What that means is, he didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to leave that life. He wasn’t running from the law. He wasn’t about to go bankrupt. None of that. He didn’t have to leave that life. He didn’t have to do any of this. He wasn’t trying to be famous.
He already was. He wasn’t trying to become powerful because he already was. He wasn’t trying to curry favor for perks because he provides his own perks. He did it because he saw the country going down the drain and said, “We need to stop it. We need to fix it,” and so what’s he done? He’s put a lot of things at risk. His reputation? Look at what’s said about him now.
Look at what’s said about his family. Look at the efforts there have been to ruin him, to ruin his business, to ruin his reputation, to ruin his career, to ruin his political future. And it’s been ruined. The efforts that they have made have been targeted at personal destruction and ruin. And he didn’t need any of it. He’s done all of this without having to do any of it. He didn’t have to do one thing that he’s doing here.
He could have stayed on with his private life and his family doing whatever they were doing to enjoy their futures and secure it, could have stayed attached to his businesses. But he started this, and he has stuck with it under a continual assault, a personal, professional assault on him that is not ever going to end, even if he wins reelection. He said last night again, he said, “I think after we win reelection, we’re all gonna come together.”
I know why he said that, folks. He doesn’t really think it. He hopes it. He’d love it if it happens. Doesn’t expect it to happen. Would love it if it did. But how many other people in politics could say that they’re doing it ’cause they don’t have to do it? Certainly not Biden. Why is Biden doing any of this? Biden’s doing any of this because of all the things there are to get by doing it: fame, money, achievement, filling out the resume.
But Biden doesn’t know where he is half the time. And I’m not trying to be funny. Biden doesn’t even know what his own agenda is, folks, because it isn’t his. He is now the vessel for the Democrat Party. Joe Biden is simply a placeholder for whatever the Democrat establishment wants this country to become. He’s simply the guy that’s gonna run for office, and if he loses, he’s gonna lose, but the party isn’t. If he wins, yeah, but it’s gonna be the party that wins, and whoever gets installed in the positions of power to actually run it, because he’s just a vessel.
Biden’s reasons for running are the exact opposite of Donald Trump’s. Elizabeth Warren’s are the exact opposite of Trump’s, and so are Crazy Bernie’s. These people want the fame, the fortune, the notoriety, the power. Trump had all of that, as much of any of it as he wanted. And he’s put up with all of these attempts to ruin him, to destroy him. And his supporters are fully aware of it. They’re appreciative of it. And it’s why everybody hangs in.